


A house without a cat isn't a home

by MellowShark (TheAssbenderWhisperer)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Erik is a Sweetheart, Gen, Just Add Kittens, Kitten AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAssbenderWhisperer/pseuds/MellowShark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Started as a little ficlet here http://lelouchslove.tumblr.com/post/62831414098/thefingerfuckingfemalefury-comixbookgurl</p><p>Thanks to the Skype group for the encouragement~ ^^</p>
    </blockquote>





	A house without a cat isn't a home

**Author's Note:**

> Started as a little ficlet here http://lelouchslove.tumblr.com/post/62831414098/thefingerfuckingfemalefury-comixbookgurl
> 
> Thanks to the Skype group for the encouragement~ ^^

Erik had seen the red box under the awning on his way to and from work for the last couple of weeks. He’s still wondering how the little kittens are still alright, he’s been giving them as many scraps as possible from his breakfast since he first saw them, but surely that wasn't enough, someone else must be looking after them. Silently he’ll just hope.

Just after leaving work, he quickly picked up some tinned cat food from a shop along with bread and, god he doesn't even know what cats eat except for this horrible smelling tinned crap. He shrugged, carrying his items towards that red box that has been sitting opposite his house.  
  
__________

"Wesley! Wesley! He’s coming! He’s coming!" Charles ran around his brothers, tripping over little Brian and brushing up to his more identical looking brother. "Do you think he’ll stroke us again? Or feed us? He’s such a caring human!" Charles near bounced around the box, his brother now attempting to look over the red wall that separated the kittens and their deserving freedom!

"Charles calm down. It’s not like he’s actually helping us, we’re still stuck in this," Wesley pushed against the side of the box, "god forsaken fortress!" He noticed the human just coming into sight and glared as best he could; whilst he won’t admit it, he was glad the human was giving him and his brothers food, they were so hungry.

__________  
  
Erik knelt, smiling at the lighter brown kittens who seemed to be the most awake in the ever darkening evening. He raised an eyebrow at a sudden, loud mew that came from the ever excited one; laughing as it raised itself onto it’s hind legs and begged for attention, tipping backwards to land on a smaller, darker kitten. The other light brown one just turned, as if expecting a ridiculous event like this and sat there.

__________  
  
Wesley raised an eyebrow. “Really Charles, bit dramatic don’t you think?”

Charles quickly righted himself, ignoring Wesley and giving a small apology to little Brian, perking his head up towards Erik, looking at the offering of food. Charles moved forward and nibbled at the fishy food Erik held, happy purrs coming from his chest as he ate before licking at the remnants on the human’s fingers.

__________

The kittens all came to attention as the smell of food, Erik placed what he hadn’t given to, now dubbed ‘Topple’ in his mind, in the red box and went to stand to leave the kittens to it. He didn't expect the brown kitten to start rubbing against his hand, nor did he expect himself to start scratching behind the kitten’s ears.

Topple purred louder than he had before.

__________  
  


Erik's morning started similarly to yesterdays. He woke up, showered, got ready for work and ate a little breakfast before leaving his small apartment to delivery his scraps to the red box.

They were expecting him, Charles had woken his brothers bright and early so they were presentable for the kind human, knowing that if the little ones slept, they wouldn't get the food they needed to survive, especially as the weather started to get colder. The human knelt next to the box, but was looking up at the sky. Charles looked up to see all the blue disappear under a blanket of grey before noticing the human had placed food in the box for him and his brothers to feast on.

Erik frowned, the weather had taken such a sudden turn, one that hadn't been predicted in the last few days. His gaze moved to the awning above the kittens, the weather had begun to get wetter and he'd been so thankful the local council had decided to place the covering over pavements near bus shelters, otherwise the kittens would be-  
He didn't really want to think about.

Finally he looked at the kittens, 'topple' was ignoring the food and instead was staring straight at him with it's giant, almost human like, blue eyes. His chest felt weird. Leaning forward he picked up some of the scraps the others hadn't eaten yet and offered them to the sitting kitten.

"Eat." He pushed the food against the kitten's mouth but to no avail, "Come-on eat. I'm not leaving until you do and I know you've at least eaten something today." He was talking to a cat like he would a child. What had Erik's life become.

__________  
  


Wesley moved over to his brother and nosed at his head, a frown evident even in his little kitten features.

"Charles. Why aren't you eating? Your human is feeding us," He mewed loudly. "You're normally so excited about this I can't stand it. Now you're actually acting strange..."  
The kitten rose up and places his paws on his brother's back, leaning in and biting at Charles' ear, a yowl coming from the recipient of said biting.

"WESLEY! What was that for?!" Charles turned to his brother, ignoring the food still trying to be put into his mouth by the human.

"You're acting all funny, and not your normal funny. Your human wants you to eat, so eat."

Charles turned back to the human, seeing a look of concern on his face. The kitten mewed to himself and ate the piece of egg . Chewing it whilst rubbing against the human's hand in an apologetic manner.

"I didn't want him to go Wes...I thought if I didn't eat, he'd stay with us..."  
  
__________  
  


A glance at his watch resulted in Erik muttering a curse and reaching into his pocket to grab his phone. He quickly went into his contacts and called work, standing up and away from the red box.

"Azazel how many have we got in today? 8? We never have that many! What? Sure," his eyes flickered down to the box and back up to the every darkening rain cloud. "The weather looks like it's about to get really bad here. Can I-? Oh? ... "

__________

Charles mewed as loudly as he could as the human stood up, frantically pawing at the side of the damned red wall that separated him and the human.

"No! Please human! Don't go, it's going to get so cold and..." He continued to meow and mew loudly, in hopes of grabbing the human's attention. Wesley attempted to calm his brother down, telling him he was scaring the littler ones and biting at his ear again. Charles stopped his pawing at the box and turned to the pile of his brothers in the corner of the box.

"I'm sorry brothers," he licked at their heads in comfort.

__________

"...Thanks, just keep everyone in check."

Frowning, Erik hung up and put his phone back into his pocket, his chest hurting in a strange way from Topple's loud mews during his conversation. He grabbed his keys in one hand and knelt down, threading his other hand through Topple's fur, seeing the dejected posture of the kitten. Purrs came from the kitten, making the frown on Erik's face fade into a smile.

Reluctantly Erik removed his hand, wincing at the mewl of distress from Topple. He whispered an apology, watching the kitten run towards him and pawing at his hands. Erik grasped the sides of the red box and lifted it, looking around and crossing the road back to his apartment, just as it started to rain.

__________

Wesley perked up at the sudden upwards movement; a drop of water landing on his head.

"Nyah! Water! Charles we're going to drown!"

The pile of kittens started to mewl in, now sleepy, panic. Charles rushed over and licked their heads in comfort again, calming them down as best they could.

"Wesley shush!" He perked his head up, looking up at his human. _His_ human? _Their_ human really... But he were taking them inside. Away from the water, away from the cold! Oh Charles was so happy, he turned to his brothers with a smile on his face.

"We're going to be alright now, we're safe."

__________

"So I'm going to be working from home today." Erik looked down at the pile of kittens weighting down one side of the red box, cursing at how they could look so cute whilst giving him so much trouble getting up three flights of stairs. He started to think about trying to convert the box into a sort of bedding for them, at least for now until he figured something else out. Opening the door to his apartment, he jostled the box.

"Sorry!"

Rolling his eyes at his own actions, why was he talking to these kittens again? He dumped his keys on a table and lowered the box to the floor, looking down at the pile of kittens with Topple laying at the front, looking like it was keeping guard. Topple perked up at the decent of the box and looked up at Erik, sitting up, curling it's tail around the base of it's body and staring.

"You shouldn't be able to be this adorable." Erik ran a hand through his hair, muttering he'd be back in a moment and hunting for a phone book of some sort. A few moments later he gave up and grabbed his laptop instead, shrugging his jacket off and sitting in front of the kittens, watching them slowly move around; Topple still just stared at him.

"You guys need names." On his laptop he quickly searched for local vets online, finding one luckily only about 10 minutes away. "But I don't even know if you're all boys? What about you Topple? Are you a boy?" He dialed the vet's number into his phone and began to call them, resting his arm on the side of the box and relaxing it to stroke at Topple's head.

"Hello, I wanted to ask if I could bring in some stray kittens?"

________________________________________

Erik winced at the loud mewls coming from the two cages he held. The vet visit wasn't that bad really, he'd found out the kittens were nearly four months old, oddly much to his distress as they'd only been outside for one, meaning that at three months old these poor kittens had just been dumped on the street. He also was told they were all male and that bar some malnourished, all 5 were as fit as they could hope for.

They just didn't enjoy the shots they were given.

At all.

Topple had been the worst, almost seeming like Erik had abandoned him to this punishment. Erik coddled him as soon as he could, stroking at the kitten's ear and holding him in his arms like he would a child.

He placed the cages on the floor, popping into the hallway to thank a neighbour for helping him bring up the food and items for the kittens, taking them back into his apartment and placing the food in the kitchen and began to move around his living area to make space and to make it safe for the kittens.  
He turned to the cages and released the siblings, watching as Topple near enough bolted out of the cage towards his lap, followed slowly by the only other kitten with the same colouring. The other three remained inside for longer, two of which slowly came out of the cages and padded around the hardwood floor. One simply remained inside.

Erik frowned a little.

"I need to think of names and find ways to tell you all apart."

He moved Topple of his lap and went to find his laptop.

__________

"Chaaaaarles..." Brian mewed from inside the cage. "I don't like this..."

Charles walked over to the cage and poked his head in, smiling gently at his brother. "Do you trust me?" Brian nodded. "Then trust me when I saw that we're safe now." Charles heard his human coming back and brought his little brother out of the cage.

The human had the silver thing again, Charles was curious about it, moving towards the human as he sat and pawed at the black squares and rectangles on the silver thing.

__________

Erik raised an eyebrow at the kitten's antics, looking at the screen he saw the letters 'C', 'H', 'A' and 'R' come up in the search bar. 'Char?' He placed a hand behind the kitten's head, scratching at the base of his neck.

"Instead of Topple how about..." He looked at the screen and began to type out a few more letters.

"How about Charles?"

Charles curled up with his head on Erik's knee and purred happily in response. Yup, he and his brothers were going be a-okay.

**Author's Note:**

> ;//; I don't write often, but I really couldn't not attempt to do something for that gif. Although this kind of got a bit kitty angsty at some point ^^' 
> 
> Fri, Erik, Roz and Steff! I hope i made it happy enough for you guys~


End file.
